Chomsky on Intellectual Property

Re:Chomsky on Intellectual Property by davidw on Thursday March 17, 2011 @06:29AM (#2335643)

How is throwing out IP laws completely going to get you those things? I don't see it. Who's going to bring drugs to market? Sure, government sponsors basic research, but to get there to the market is not exactly a walk in the park.

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Re:Chomsky on Intellectual Property by intended on Thursday March 17, 2011 @07:56AM (#2335813)

I've read the thread again, could you tell me where I came across as "throwing out IP Laws completely"?.

I think - A) Competition is good for some types of goods, not all. (I don't remember/know the correct economic criteria to define this.)

B) IP laws are good/great for some research, and bad/terrible for others.

C) I do not see the current system incentivizing humanity's good over personal/shareholder profit.

D) The current system has 'Human Good' occur as a side effect of rewarding people to do their best. It is vastly better than any system which has existed before. it will be better if we can fix C).

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Re:Chomsky on Intellectual Property by davidw on Thursday March 17, 2011 @08:02AM (#2335826)

The original article was about Chomsky saying IP was a bad thing, and a lot of commenters here seem to like the idea of ditching it, lock stock and barrel.

I agree with your points, and think that D and C are incremental improvements to the existing system to try and make with time, rather than a reason to junk the entire thing.

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Re:Chomsky on Intellectual Property by intended on Friday March 18, 2011 @06:40AM (#2339958)

I agree that ditching the whole thing would be ineffective. Even if we did, I would bet that the new system would be the old system with minor differences.

There is good in the system, it needs more people to help managed and identify fraudulent/cheating behavior which is aimed at gaming the system.

I also think we need a smaller net so that fewer things can be patented. Again, this is for the freedom to exchange information and ideas, which leads to the betterment of humanity as a whole.

Everything we do has been built on the ideas and labor of others before us. It makes little sense to me to imagine we will be better off by not letting future generations do the same.

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Re:Chomsky on Intellectual Property by calibraxis on Thursday March 17, 2011 @08:18AM (#2335868)

There are proposed alternatives to IP protections. For example, a society could decide to fund these as public goods. (Say, in a participatory bottom-up manner.)

Then you don't have the stick-filesharers-in-jail problem.

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Re:Chomsky on Intellectual Property by intended on Friday March 18, 2011 @06:34AM (#2339949)

I would champion this point - at least in terms of research and science.

On the other hand when it comes to artists and sharing of other similar IP, the current system can do with shorter copyright terms. At least thats my non-nuanced starting point on these discussions.

(!!Science!!)

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